Investigation of Flow Boiling Heat Transfer Performance of Grooved Metal Foam (Ni, Cu) Evaporators

To meet the miniaturized cooling demands of high-heat-flux electronic devices, metal foams—featuring high specific surface area and multiscale porous structures—are considered promising candidates for enhancing flow boiling evaporation. However, pore density (PPI) and grooved geometry (channel aspect ratio, AR) jointly regulate vapor–liquid distribution, rewetting, and flow resistance, thereby constraining overall performance. Here, flow boiling experiments were conducted on nickel and copper foams with pore densities of 100, 500, and 1000 PPI and AR values of 0.7, 1.0, and 1.3. Heat transfer coefficient (HTC), wall superheat (ΔT), and pressure drop (Δp) were systematically evaluated, complemented by transient two-phase simulations revealing vapor fraction, temperature, and pressure drop distributions. A pronounced non-monotonic pore-density dependence is observed: 500 PPI achieves an optimal balance between heat-transfer enhancement and flow resistance, whereas 100 PPI suffers from vapor accumulation and temperature non-uniformity, and 1000 PPI is penalized by excessive permeability resistance and pore-scale confinement. An optimal AR of 1.0 promotes efficient vapor venting and stable rewetting. Under the optimal configuration (500 PPI, AR =1.0), a limiting heat flux of 348.6 W/cm2, corresponding to the HTC of 55.4 kW/(m2 · K), and a limiting HTC of 130.3 kW/(m2 · K) are achieved, providing quantitative design guidelines for metal-foam two-phase evaporators.